Student Service Development

The start of 2020 saw many masters students across the UK completing their two-year pre-registration Occupational Therapy programme. Throughout the course, students will have gained an insight into the importance of continuing professional development, including management of change within health and social care settings. With health services and the role of Occupational Therapists ever changing, there is great emphasis placed upon service development.

Students at the University of East Anglia have completed their final assessment on just this topic. As a culmination of their learning - using their experiences from their final elective placements - students were tasked to come up with service development ideas for their given setting. They were then required to demonstrate comprehensive knowledge and planning of their idea and present this to their peers, as a timed and graded assessment. The students used a variety of models of change - such as the PDSA model (as outlined by NHS Change) - as well as process maps, to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. Student OT Caroline Silby found that the process helped her to “consider team dynamics when operationalising change” and made her “more proactive within service development, whilst applying critical thinking to a clinical environment”.

Students were only formally required to complete the planning phase of these projects, but some were able to begin implementing trial periods whilst on their placements - and others have reported that their plans have been taken on board by their placement colleagues, with the aim to implement them in the near future. When considering areas for development “the service improvement task helped me to understand the service I was in on placement and identify areas that had not been previously considered” - Lorna Day, who was based in a low secure unit for her placement, says. Lorna is now qualified, employed as an occupational therapist and has already found the skills developed on this task helpful; “since being employed as a qualified OT, I feel I can confidently plan improvements to this service on a small scale and larger scale if necessary.

It’s a very transferable skill for the work environment and also helped in my job interview.”

The students were in a wide variety of settings, from acute hospitals and mental health to role emerging; this gave opportunity for an array of ideas to be shared amongst the students and lecturers. Charmaine Chandler, University of East Anglia MSc Occupational Therapy Course Director, explains the importance of this final assessment. “One of the core aims underpinning the MSc pre-registration Occupational Therapy programme at the University of East Anglia is - ‘To develop therapists that are flexible and responsive to change, able to manage themselves and others within changing contexts of health and social care, whilst ensuring best value'.

This final assessment of the programme enables this aim to be assessed; determining the students' ability to identify areas of potential service development and be responsive to the needs of the service in developing ideas for implementation. The students explore their ideas from the perspective of all stakeholders, to understand the potential value and impact and ensure that the change proposed is both feasible and sustainable. The variety of innovative evidence-base presented on the assessment day confirmed that this aim had been realised - but, most importantly - that these newly qualified Occupational Therapists have the mindset and skill to support the continued development of both effective and efficient health and social care services.”

Students and lecturers alike feel that sharing the service development titles with The Occupational Therapy Hub community would be beneficial in demonstrating:

the hard work and emphasis placed upon service development in the current OT course

the valuable contribution students can have in implementing change in your services

Some of the service development titles that students elaborated on are as follows:

The Occupational Therapy Hub

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